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Developers who blame the IGDA for doing nothing, blame themselves for doing nothing

January 14th, 2010 · 24 Comments · Personal

I made a bit of a stink on twitter posting that little accusation above (although on Facebook funny enough the response was unanimously “Hells yea!”), and I’d like to explain it a bit more here for people who didn’t fully understand what I was saying.

My best example would be the recent Tim Langdell fiasco that stirred so much controversy over the last year. I feel that many game developers still directly blame the IGDA for the entire situation, not realizing that a good portion of the blame falls back on them. Yes, I really am going to re-open this can of worms. First, let’s recognize that the IGDA made the grave mistake of assuming that people would be satisfied if they stuck to their legal guns rather than listen to the outcry of the members and industry in general. It could even be construed that they held on to Tim Langdell as long as possible to keep him around to work on the new website (a possibility many would find additionally discouraging seeing how the new site was received). Then again, Tim could have stuck around on his own volition for the exact same purpose. They also didn’t come back and provide proper guidance as the situation continued to worsen and Tim continued to refuse to resign.

Now, let’s consider how the IGDA members (or any non-members who saw fit to bad-mouth the org) are equally, if not more, to blame for the whole situation. First, many people were unable to separate the actions of an individual from the actions of the IGDA, and so they contributed to tarnishing the organization’s image by declaring that the Board of Directors were complicit with the actions of Langdell, never mind the fact that the board does not have, nor has ever had, the ability to control what their members do as individuals. People couldn’t just say “Tim Langdell”, they had to say “IGDA Director Tim Langdell” or otherwise associate him directly with the organization. I have no doubt that Tim, in his time and service as a board member, worked hard to further the goals of the organization.

Additionally, many people chose to remain ignorant as to exactly how Tim became a Director in the first place, and how he could be removed. Stephen Jacobs did an excellent job explaining the lack of member interest in voting and how it led to Tim’s election over on his Gamasutra blog (although I would like to correct him on the IGDA’s ability to appoint people), and yet when you look through the comments all people are concerned about are calling out Tim on both his actions against indie developers and his questionable game development history – while continuing to jab at the IGDA for doing nothing. You see, Tim being a member of the IGDA board lent a much stronger argument to people looking to defame him.  At least, that’s what I figure given that no one saw fit to take proper action against him as outlined by Stephen.

To make matters even worse, by this time a lot of members were looking at the inactivity of the board and instead of taking responsibility for electing this person into his current position said “fuck this” and left the organization entirely – thereby removing themselves from the ability to vote Tim out of his position. Could it be said that the board is at fault for not informing the members via a statement that they could petition for a special meeting? Yes. However members can also be held accountable for not bothering to read the bylaws of the organization they are a part of, or failing to act upon those laws as is within their right.

A little over a month after Stephen’s post, Corvus Elrod decides to spearhead the petition for a special meeting and the removal of Tim Langdell. I’ve met Corvus, he’s a great guy, but I have to express my disappointment in his blog post – to me the tone sounds as if the membership of the IGDA have reached some sort of last resort, rather than the one thing someone should have done from the very beginning if people had really wanted Tim Langdell drug out of office, regardless of whether the board wanted to keep him or not. ( I am, however, interested in whether the undisclosed board member who told him there was no way to remove Langdell did so out of ignorance of the bylaws, or on purpose to save the board the trouble.)

After Tim resigned following the successful petition for a special meeting (the meeting was never held, but reaching that point gave Tim enough impetus to finally step down on his own), members continued to take action, as they rightly should, to try and prevent such an occurrence from happening again. One of the additional failures of the IGDA was the fact that no one really knew about Tim’s trademark practices before he was elected. The Voter Guidance Committee’s reforms of the election system, if they managed to keep up momentum on the initiative, should come to fruition with the upcoming board elections this month.

On Rockstar San Diego

No I’m not done yet, because the previous discussion leads directly into this one. I had hoped the story above had made it out to more people, who would gain a better understanding of the IGDA and how it functions and how, as members, they can function within it to make it better by doing things like reforming questionable election processes. Apparently this is not the case, as many are still wondering what the IGDA does for them or why the IGDA can not directly affect things like the situation made known by the spouses of Rockstar San Diego employees regarding deplorable working conditions at the studio. (There are also questions as to why people would put up with such treatment. Reid Kimball has a blog post that offers some ideas, and Jay Barnson also has compelling reasons for why people stick with dying projects/hard conditions.)

Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: The IGDA isn’t meant to directly serve the games industry. As a professional organization the best it can do is serve its members. That might make some people go “What?!” – however its members are comprised of the the games industry. By serving its members, the IGDA is in turn serving the games industry. It is the members of the IGDA working together that will make the changes in the industry, not the IGDA itself. The organization exists to empower developers and set standards for companies and individuals to follow. The more who do so, the better things will become. You do not have to join the IGDA for the sole purpose of getting something from it for yourself – that’s rather selfish considering joining the IGDA, at the basic level, shows that you approve of and support the changes your fellow members of the IGDA and the games industry are trying to make within the business of making games. As a non-profit organization, the IGDA is entirely dependent upon its membership for support and growth and the ability to spend money on furthering the goals of its members, who all seek to make the industry better.

It’s unfair for people to point at the IGDA and accuse it of being able to do nothing besides take a stand in support of the employees of Rockstar, because apparently no one at Rockstar decided to approach the IGDA to do something. Yes, the IGDA knew about the situation, but without cooperation from the studio employees or managers there was nothing the organization could do. There’s still nothing the organization can do. Rockstar as a studio never agreed to be withholden to the IGDA’s standards as set forth by the Quality of Life SIG, nor are they a studio member of the organization, therefore the IGDA cannot directly take on the studio. Neither has any group of Rockstar employees risen up with a court case and requested the assistance of the IGDA in fighting for their lost rights. The best anyone has done is band together loosely to release an open letter of condemnation – and those are the spouses of the employees!

Stop blaming yoursleves

So unless you’re ready to start from scratch and form your own organization to simply create a more complex problem out there, or you really think we’re all better off acting as individuals (look how that’s turning out) I suggest you get involved with the IGDA by becoming a member. Do it simply to support all the other members actively working and using the monetary resources you provide to continue to improve standards and reach out to more areas of the industry with their advocacy. Or, if you support the idea of the IGDA but feel there are parts of it that need to change, roll up your sleeves and join a SIG or request the formation of your own to address a certain issue. You certainly do not have to agree with other SIG members to be involved with that group. Debate is a constant practice, and the more voices that are heard the better the resulting compromise will be. The IGDA doesn’t offer a service in your country? There’s no local chapter in your area? Volunteer to research into creating that service, or work to start that chapter (I did the latter, and the NJ Chapter is everything I could have dreamed it would be).

The sooner we get everyone under one banner, working towards a standard set of practices and at least arguing from within the same camp, the less we’ll come across situations like the one we’ve found to exist at Rockstar San Diego. I think Jason Della Rocca, in his “Apology Rant” upon stepping down from Executive Director of the IGDA last year, said it best:

“Sorry for not doing a better job of roping in all the snipers from the sidelines. Turns out you are all pretty damn good at bitching and complaining and being critical. But then you don’t actually do anything about it and you don’t get involved. Sorry for not bringing critics under the tent and getting them to work at improving things.”

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24 Comments so far ↓

  • ViiK

    I'm really not sure that “But then you don’t actually do anything about it and you don’t get involved.” makes a lot of sence, why somebody would assume that members of his group or employess would just start contributing and doing something, just because they joined or work for you. This is exactly leaders role to create environment which would push up such behaviour, so people would start to care and do something. If it dosn't happen I would indeed blame organization leaders. Kind a remind me of ex FEMA leader who was blaming everybody else except himself in very bad reaction to Katrina.

    Btw, that paragraph is a bit out of contest of full post. Mostly he indeed blames himself.

  • Gaiiden

    He's not actually apologizing, he's calling out all the people who saw fit to bad-mouth the organization for some poor practice or lack of advocacy in some area, and then do nothing about it themselves. So who are they to complain about it when they can simply join the organization and start doing the work they say should be done? Everyone in the organization, including the board, are volunteers doing things they feel are needed in the industry. Jason's pretty much saying “shut up or put up”

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  • jalf

    So if the Rockstar employees *had* approached the IGDA for help, what would have happened? What would the organization have been able to do? It's easy enough to just spread around the blame, saying it's everyone else's fault for not being a member, or for perceiving the organization as impotent, but why should we believe it could make a difference, with or without our support? Has it actually *worked* in previous cases? What could it conceivably have done in the Rockstar case, if asked for help?

  • Gaiiden

    That's a good question. I think the lack of an answer stems from the fact that, well, I don't think anyone ever *has* come to the IGDA in such a capacity and asked for assistance :/ Whether it's because they feel the IGDA can't do anything or because they feel it can't do anything.

    I do know that the IGDA has stood behind litigation in the past, however you'll have to find someone with a better memory for that. It was also a lot of Jason Della Rocca's doing – he spearheaded a LOT of pro-active IGDA efforts back in the early aughts. Nowadays the org is still trying to find traction with its new structure of handling things as a board working in conjunction with the management agency – therefore the membership has had to step up a lot recently – and many aren't.

  • Paul Sinnett

    “However members can also be held accountable for not bothering to read the bylaws of the organization they are a part of, or failing to act upon those laws as is within their right.”

    No, that's incorrect. Many members read the bylaws in great detail and it was discussed extensively on the IGDA's own forums as well as other blogs.

    “to me the tone sounds as if the membership of the IGDA have reached some sort of last resort, rather than the one thing someone should have done from the very beginning if people had really wanted Tim Langdell drug out of office”

    It was indeed the last resort. What further could be done if that had failed? A vote like that is effectively a vote of no confidence in the board. There is a lot that can be done before getting to that stage but nothing that can be done after it, bar leaving the organisation. And a lot was done before that. Including asking board members to call the vote to remove him themselves. This is also something that they are explicitly allowed to do in the bylaws. I personally asked both Bob Bates and the new director to call that vote and they said they would not. This was already months into the controversy. There really was no other option.

    When the petition went up, barely 2% of members responded in two weeks, despite all the publicity in the press and blog coverage and everything those of us concerned by the issue did to spread the word. I myself was spending all of my spare time on this one issue by that point including directly emailing every IGDA member I know personally. The IGDA board had promised to publicise the petition in their newsletter but they did not.

    Eventually, someone decided to exploit a weakness in the IGDA web site's emailing form to broadcast a letter to all IGDA members. As a result of this action the 10% target figure was surpassed within a day. But as a result of that we also became aware that most IGDA members not only had no idea who Tim Langdell was, they had no idea they even were IGDA members. The problem is that many IGDA members (maybe as many as 90%) are signed up by a studio subscription.

    What was the board's reaction to this sudden expression of interest from its own membership? “OMG the web site's been hacked!” Still no mention of Langdell or a petition in any official communication. No, now it seemed that the entire resources of the organisation must be put to work to prevent IGDA members from contacting other IGDA members.

    The months went by. There were more behind the scenes talks and secret meetings and plans. And as you point out, eventually Langdell steps down by himself anyway, letting the IGDA leadership completely off the hook.

    To summarise, a handful of dedicated members spent a lot of their own time and effort last year fighting their own organisation's leadership to ensure that Tim Langdell was removed from the board. Has anything changed now Tim has gone? If it has, I haven't seen any sign of it yet.

  • Gaiiden

    Well, there has certainly been change in the org after Tim left, but I assume you're referring to change in relation to the issues that led to the Tim fiasco in the first place? Otherwise I'd like to to know what change you are looking for. In regards to the board, hopefully the members I mentioned working on election reforms have continued their work and we'll see the changes in this upcoming election – changes that should help prevent the election of members whose history may cause clashes with the IGDA's ethical standards. Because let's not forget that the whole issue boils down to the fact that, upon nomination, no one really knew about Tim's personal practices regarding trademarks (to my knowledge, at least).

    So, change *is* happening – but again it's dedicated members who are doing it, not people shouting on the sidelines or standing around tapping their feet waiting for it to happen (generalistically speaking, btw)

  • Paul Sinnett

    “I assume you're referring to change in relation to the issues that led to the Tim fiasco”

    No. I actually accept that situations such as occurred with Tim Langdell are inevitable for the organisation. The change I'm looking for is a change in how those situations are handled once they have occurred. I'm looking for greater transparency, accountability, advocacy on issues that are important to game developers (even if they might conflict with the issues that are important to studios) and responsiveness to members.

    Indeed, the next election will be an interesting test of the membership. Are we now sufficiently impressed with the performance of the IGDA to make the quorum required for the vote to count? It happened last year, barely. Not that you'd know that, without speaking to board members directly, since the figures weren't published then and they still aren't now; despite repeated requests.

    The statement on Rockstar San Diego was a welcome surprise. Both because it happened in weeks rather than months, and because it appears to back the quality of life advocacy. But there are two worrying aspects to it.

    Firstly, you will note that I raised the issue immediately on both the quality of life SIG and Advocacy forums a week ago when the story broke:

    http://www.igda.org/forum/rockstar-san-diego-0
    http://www.igda.org/forum/rockstar-san-diego

    You will also note no responses from any of the SIG leadership before or to date. The decision to make a statement and what it contained was made in private and without openly consulting the SIG's members or the wider membership, or even informing them. Over the last year we were told that the new web site was going to put an end to that kind of thing. Well it hasn't yet.

    Secondly, the statement contains unexplained caveats which I detail here:
    http://www.igda.org/igda-regarding-overtime-con

    My guess is that these apparently unnecessary caveats are there because otherwise it would expose the hypocrisy in releasing a statement in opposition to Rockstar where they steadfastly refused to take a stand against Epic's Mike Capps last year. It would lead to the accusation of crony-ism since Mike Capps is a former board member of the IGDA.

    I raised this issue at the time both in posts on the forum and private email to the board:

    http://www.igda.org/node/1034724?page=4#comment

    And, as you can see, it was rejected as irrelevant by Erin. Instead she continued to divert attention away from the danger of opening the organisation to accusations of conflicts of interest by focussing on issues such as definitions and apologies which no-one else had raised.

    My issue is that you appear to be attacking those “on the sidelines” without actually being aware yourself of the events that played out inside the IGDA last year over Langdell and Capps. This is not entirely surprising. The IGDA isn't going to go out of its way to inform the membership on these things. But to its credit, most of the story is still accessible through the forums. There was a bit of heavy handed censorship and the new forums are broken with regard to quoting which makes reading it a bit tricky to attribute who said what.

    But if you're willing to make the investment of time and effort to go through those stories:

    CAPPS
    http://www.igda.org/node/1034724
    http://www.igda.org/node/1035256
    http://www.igda.org/node/1035103

    LANGDELL
    http://www.igda.org/node/1035923
    http://www.igda.org/node/1035830
    http://www.igda.org/node/1036378

    BYLAWS
    http://www.igda.org/node/1036504
    http://www.igda.org/node/1035857

    CENSORSHIP
    http://www.igda.org/node/1036763
    http://www.igda.org/node/1036784

    And that's not all of it by any means. But if you make it through all that and still think that IGDA members like myself are in any way to blame for the situation the IGDA now finds itself in, then please let me know what more you think we could have done.

  • Erin Hoffman

    Drew, first, I want to thank you for this post… I've linked it in several places and circulated it among IGDA members. I think that it's so in vogue to trash the IGDA that it takes an act of social bravery to approach the issue publicly with clear-headedness and rationality.

    Paul, what you're leaving out of this story is that you have been invited many times to the IGDA QOL SIG and have shown no interest. I have also sent you messages on your concerns that you have ignored.

    What Drew is asking is pertinent for the IGDA's fiercest critics: what are you, Paul Sinnett, doing for quality of life, besides posting on message boards about how you don't like what the IGDA is doing?

    And when the board does make progress and make a strong statement about quality of life, why do you, rather than encouraging and upholding this progress, dig in your heels over single words? I have told you, publicly and privately, that I agree with your lack of comfort with the “undisclosed”, but where we disagree is in your condemning the entire organization for what is in reality a compromise reflective of the opinions of numerous actual working industry professionals.

    The current IGDA statement has nothing to do with Mike Capps. I was there for the board decisions and can tell you that his name never came up. Only the issues were discussed. I do think that the leadership forum panel was a debacle for a number of reasons, but it was PR fail, not policy fail. And no one on the IGDA board lacks the fortitude to criticize Mike Capps (or frankly anyone for that matter) when they disagree with him.

    What you and the 40hr wk-faithful fail to understand is that a great percentage of the industry disagrees with the 40hr standard. What they all DO agree on is that 1) sustained deathmarch is unacceptable for a variety of reasons; 2) employers should notify their employees of their overtime policies prior to hiring; 3) crunch itself is not a sustainable development tool and many studios are working to reduce it. All of these were in the statement. More than that, there is disagreement within the industry, and we are working to move it toward work-to-live standards — and the constant nitpicking from the sidelines is wholly counterproductive to that effort. I want to be very clear that the negativity directed at IGDA central _actively undermines_ our efforts to move quality of life forward, because when I get up to advocate QOL in front of the board, I am told that I'm responding to a vocal and hateful minority that will never be satisfied.

    Anyway, I don't want to get into this on Drew's blog, but the sideline discussion of IGDA bylaws and whatnot is nowhere near as comprehensive, populous, or productive as you insinuate here.

  • Paul Sinnett

    “I have also sent you messages on your concerns that you have ignored.”

    Hi Erin. I'm not ignoring you. I haven't received any messages. Are you sure you have the correct email address for me? The only thing I have received from you is a colleague request on the IGDA site, which I accepted straight away.

  • andyp69

    You do know that, for example, Capps has openly admitted – nay, boasted about – lying on his election ticket in order to deliberately scupper the IGDQ QoL SIG?

    And that's the fault of IGDA *members*, is it? That they were lied to?

    And now you want us to pony up money for membership of an organisation that has repeatedly proven itself to be not only ineffectual but actively working *against* the needs of its members, in favour of its board – who incidentally used unilateral emergency powers to appoint *more* unelected members for a *longer* period of time, thereby making the entire voting process about as irrelevant as it is possible to get? (Yes, Ms Hoffman, that's you).

    You, sir, have come up with a series of disingenuous, not to say entirely false arguments to place the blame anywhere except for where it truly lies.

  • Anthony Rosbottom

    “What you and the 40hr wk-faithful fail to understand is that a great percentage of the industry disagrees with the 40hr standard.”

    Wow! Do they? I can't start to imagine how you can qualify this statement but feel free to enlighten me.

  • Paul Sinnett

    “I have also sent you messages on your concerns that you have ignored.”

    Hi Erin. I'm not ignoring you. I haven't received any messages. Are you sure you have the correct email address for me? The only thing I have received from you is a colleague request on the IGDA site, which I accepted straight away.

  • andyp69

    Whatever.

  • Anthony Rosbottom

    “What you and the 40hr wk-faithful fail to understand is that a great percentage of the industry disagrees with the 40hr standard.”

    Wow! Do they? I can't start to imagine how you can qualify this statement but feel free to enlighten me.

  • Truth Teller

    >>What Drew is asking is pertinent for the IGDA's fiercest critics: what are you, Paul Sinnett, doing for quality of life, besides posting on message boards about how you don't like what the IGDA is doing?<<

    Frankly posting on message boards is more productive than becoming an industry QOL turncoat who has the gall to write-off over a century of actual research and data as the “40 hr faithful”.

    I can't think of one person doing more harm to QOL in the industry right now than you Erin. You take up the space at IGDA of the board member who supposedly advocates it, but you oppose at ever turn the only real, quantitative thing that can be done – criticizing those who belittle that century of research. But you are one of them! Mike Capps could not be happier than if he appointed you himself. He doesn't have to lift a finger and he has the en enemy of QoL fighting continuously on the IDGA board against the world-standard 40 hr week.

  • tadhgk

    This is a very common refrain from IGDA loyalists, the “get involved if you want change” argument.

    The counter-argument is simply this: The IGDA is an impediment to effecting any useful change in the industry because it has managed to become a de facto voice of game developers while at the same time constitutionally framing itself in such a way that it cannot actually do anything for them.

    This makes it nothing more than a club for would-be sages and white paper writers. It's not a representative organisation in reality. It's just a career gig. An academic study group. A haven for greybeards who like to pronounce wisdom, students who want to break into the industry and etc.

    The one thing that all the active naysayers keep coming back to is this: Has the IGDA ever, in its long history, actually accomplished anything? Has it ever been at the forefront of actual change? And the answer is “not really”

    To be fair, they have a point. It's all well and good saying that it's about getting involved, change from within etc, but the organisation at a functional level is not useful to developers. The IGDA is not a professional organisation and it doesn't agitate for anything. It's an open door clubhouse which takes any and all members it can find.

    It fundamentally cannot represent developers meaningfully because it won't take on the mantle of a developer's union (in the mould of a writer's guild or other creative union).

    And that's the real issue here: The feeling among naysayers is simply that changing the IGDA would not fundamentally be worth it because it is as byzantine and useful as the US Senate. Instead, they feel that it would be better to simply replace the IGDA with a leaner organisation that focuses on the actual concerns of real developers rather than everyone who pays a membership.

    I for one think the IGDA's time is past and it's time for professionals to go and found their own leaner developer union whose only focus is their issues. And I don't think that's a minority opinion.

  • Gaiiden

    “I for one think the IGDA's time is past and it's time for professionals to go and found their own leaner developer union whose only focus is their issues. And I don't think that's a minority opinion.”

    Despite my support for the IGDA, I have nothing to say against this at all. BUT! Ironically enough this all circles back to my point – who's going to do anything about getting a union started if that's the way people are feeling things should go?

    Another argument to be made in relation to what I just said is that the IGDA may have turned into a sort of “crutch” the industry has chosen to lean on – because really what else is there? Like a crutch, it can help with an injury but doesn't really actively partake in *healing* the injury. The very existence of the IGDA may actually be causing people to have second thoughts about creating a union. Good or bad? Time will tell.

    I, for one, am looking forward to the IGDA Annual Meeting at GDC this year!

  • Paul Sinnett

    “I don't want to get into this on Drew's blog.”

    Agreed:

    http://www.igda.org/forum/developers-who-blame-

  • James Steele

    I would join the IGDA, but all I see is a load of in-fighting and chest puffing. The IGDA is nothing more than a body for self-promotion for certain individuals, I only have to look at my own local chapter to see that.

    Has the IGDA ever stopped to consider why a vast majority of the critics haven't joined? No? Then I suggest that they look at why that is, rather than berating us for a) having an opinion and b) having the audacity to refuse to join, in protest.

  • James Steele

    If the board think that our calls for improved quality of life are from “a vocal and hateful minority that will never be satisfied” then that pretty much puts paid to any sort of right of complaint from IGDA members.

    It's this precise reason myself and other, refuse to join a hateful, out of touch body with about as much political power and direction as a dead cat.

  • rathernotsay

    >>If the board think that our calls for improved quality of life are from “a vocal and hateful minority that will never be satisfied” then that pretty much puts paid to any sort of right of complaint from IGDA members.

    Well said James. This is actually an interesting information-slip from Erin. It has long been though by game developers that the IGDA board, far from representing their views, actually holds game developers in contempt.

    We now have confirmation from a board member herself (albeit an unelected one) that this is exactly the case. Why on EARTH would the entire IGDA board not be advocating for QoL improvements, rather than spitting vile and contempt upon anyone even suggesting, however mildly, that there are improvement needed?

    In this message Erin has revealed the IGDA boards true colors for all to see.

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